1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the financial service and banking industries, and, more particularly, to systems, computer program products, and associated methods to utilize the expectation of tax refunds to extend credit to existing demand deposit accounts, prepaid cards and lines of credit associated therewith.
2. Background
Millions of prepaid cards are issued each year in the United States. Many of the customers of prepaid cards rely primarily on cash and a prepaid card account for their personal finances; these customers often do not have a traditional checking, savings, or other bank deposit account, and they consequently do not write or otherwise use bank checks.
Short-term financing is at present a $20 billion plus per year industry. Considerable portions of this lending take the form of lines of credit, the proceeds of which are made available to the customers through demand deposit accounts and prepaid cards. It is believed by industry experts that an appropriate manner of offering micro-lending is through a federal bank.